Risks of Recession continuing to rise.

Most major polls of economists have said the chances of a recession and its ill-begotten progeny, a bear market, are very low.

While stock market bulls may take comfort in that, they should remember this: Not one recession in the past 50 years was forecast in advance by a major poll of economic forecasters, said James Stack, a market historian and editor of InvesTech Research.

Recessions and bears can and often do arrive unexpectedly. Savvy investors simply cannot rely on assurances that the economy won't lapse into recession, generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.